


still

by Xine



Series: palms [2]
Category: DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel), DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Second Person, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 09:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2688230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xine/pseuds/Xine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you returned from the bathroom you were met with the sight of him hunched over in the bed, staring at his unsteady hand with blood coating the skin, crimson liquid flowing into the creases of his palm. He tore his gaze away to look at you and it was the first time you saw terror in his eyes.</p><p>(Second-person Noiz POV, a possible end for palms)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Auf den Ästen in den Gräben  
> Ist es nun still und ohne Leben  
> Und das Atmen fällt mir ach so schwer  
> Weh mir, oh weh  
> Und die Vögel singen nicht mehr  
> Ohne dich kann ich nicht sein
> 
> [ _Ohne dich._ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r0xxIAsZk8)

When you return home that night, the air a still, stagnant atmosphere over your skin, the cold burying itself into your bones and splitting the marrow deep within, you feel as if your body does not belong to you, as if you are a distant soul merely puppeteering the body of someone you once knew.

The cabin is quiet, not a necessarily unusual occurrence, not one you haven’t encountered before in your time living here, yet it is the first reminder of the loneliness that you will have to learn to face again; you alone in a spacious and familiar place that belongs not you but to the person you have loved and lost.

Rurakhan is a heavy, painful weight in your arms, and when you step past the wooden door frame you find yourself unable to move, cradling the extravagant bird close to your chest as he rests in sleep mode. You stare down at him, studying his frame curled within himself, his beak grazing the feathers sprouting from his breast, not speaking, not breathing, uncovered eye shut and unblinking.

The reverberating sound of the door closing behind you does little to break you from your reverie; you remain without the shift of a muscle, the joints of your legs petrified as if the freezing air has locked them in place. Your mind is drifting away, being pulled back from the current moment without your consent and to your despair.

You weren’t sure what Mink had caught, not initially. At first, it was only a cough, a symptom the two of you had brushed away and thought as simply the eve of the standard, common cold. As the days passed, the cough grew worse; his entire form convulsed as he attempted to shush them. They were loud—an abrupt fit of hacking akin to the thunderous claps of a rainstorm—and despite how often they became they still managed to catch you by surprise every time, your body going stiff as you absorbed the severity of the violent sound.

Whenever you asked him if there was anything you could do, he stayed stubborn and insisted that he was alright, that he was taking care of himself, voice stern yet—in some subtle way—distant. You would give him a look, and perhaps it was the tenseness in your jaw that made him go soft, sighing with the drop of his brows, and as he stroked your cheekbone with the back of his fingers he told you not to worry.

Out of your respect for him—in the way you knew he would do for you—you gave him his space.

Your regret and guilt for doing so sits so heavily into your core now that, if asked to describe it in the three tongues you speak, you would be unable to utter a single word in any of them.

He would begin waking up with pounding headaches, fevers burning at the surface of his forehead, and even though he had always been one to radiate strong heat off of his skin, you could feel the abnormal warmth of his body beside you in bed as he slumbered, your bodies untouching as you struggled to fall asleep. He would do well to hide his aches, expressing not once that it was something he was incapable of handling. You knew, after living with him for so many years, how to read past his stubbornness, however.

It was when he would stand up from his place on the couch, from his seat at the dinner table, from the stool of his desk where he would stumble into a period of vertigo, frame swaying out of his control before he braced his hand onto something to keep him upright. It began happening more and more, and it was only after the sun had fallen that he would let you aid him to the bedroom without any kind of refusal, you cupping his shaking elbow in your palm with each step.

This continued for a week—maybe longer, you can’t remember—before he was unable walk properly at all. He would wake and every movement he made reflected the poor rest he had just risen from, circles darkened underneath his barely open eyes while he tried to make his way from the bedroom to the kitchen. Throughout the day his condition would fail to improve at all, and as the first workday of that week rolled in, he could not follow through with his morning routine, much less spend an entire day at the shop.

Despite his urging, you refused to attend work that day either; instead, you remained unmoved at his side, only leaving your seat at the edge of the bed to fetch him fresh water or to make him one of the few foods he could keep down. After a while, he gave up on trying to convince you to go to work. He eventually let you do what you wished, saying nothing as you fussed over his condition, pressing your palm flush against his forehead to test his temperature at routine intervals.

Aside from the few questions you ask and the short answers he’d give, each of you hardly traded any words, and for a while you passed the time by carding your hands through his hair, relishing in the feeling of the smooth strands streaming past the webs between your fingers. He watched you through half-lidded eyes, contours of his face gentle and kind even through his physical strain, even through the lack of a smile pulling at his lips.

Often in the past you would joke about his age—it wasn’t so much that he was old as is but rather he was so much older than yourself—and that fact was something you would use to get under his skin when you felt like being difficult.

But in that moment, taking in his image lying in the bed you share, body racking with the merciless coughing tearing at his throat and sweat beading at his temples no matter how much you did to keep the skin dry, you thought that he earnestly looked old, aged in a way you have never truly thought of him before. With his hair looped around your fingers you thought about how much you loved this person, this man so much like yourself who gave you a life that, as a forgotten and dejected child, you never would have imagined you could have.

And a distanced part of you hates yourself for basking in his glow for so long without considering that his light could be smothered without a single moment’s notice.

Crawling under the bedsheets with him, you slept with your arm wrapped over his abdomen as he laid on his back, and you went nowhere even when his lungs suddenly halted and entered into a coughing fit. This was the last time each of you would rest together in the same bed before you took him to the hospital the next morning, where you determined that the medicines passed down from generation to generation were doing nothing to heal his ailment.

You let out a shuddering breath and you can feel your body shrink away with the motion. It’s difficult to will yourself to move, but like a puppeteer you force your legs to step forward, to delve further into the cabin that you know you will be unable to leave from. Shifting the bird’s body from your arms to hold him between your hands, you contemplate where to settle him, inoperable form weighed down by unwinding gears and cogs, by defunct wires and connectors.

Stepping in front of the dining table—almost unconsciously, as if you are a ghost following after your forgotten body—you decide to leave him upon the seat of Mink’s dining chair, where he always sat with his morning coffee and a slice of toast, where he would read the daily newspaper before your return from work, where he would construct new jewelry when his work desk wasn’t quite accommodating enough.

You settle Rurakhan upon the wooden chair. You know you won’t touch him again—not anytime soon—and even if you attempted to rise him from sleep mode you know he would not be the same Allmate, neural link broken and unmendable; he would have the same voice within the same form, but the AI would be vanished from its chip. In a way, he simply appears as if he is sleeping—his frame curled in on itself in a silent slumber—but, like his owner, you know better than to think he is anything but gone.

Over the backrest hangs a weaved textile, one you watched Mink thread together with his hands repeatedly, methodically, and you always thought it was beautiful with its array of deep maroons and earthy browns, accented with vibrant gold and gentle beige. The fabric is thick, hefty, not particularly soft to the touch, but you would run your hand down its length whenever you approached him from behind, resting your palm flat against it as you bent your head down to press your lips onto his own.

Now, your fingers hesitate to inch closer to it, a nauseous sensation building deeper in your gut as you hold your left hand out. Slowly, arduously, your digits pull back, and you drop your hand to let it hang at your side.

You remember the morning you decided to take him to the hospital—a compromise he expressed no encouragement nor rejection towards—when you had left him for only a few short moments. When you returned from the bathroom you were met with the sight of him hunched over in the bed, staring at his unsteady hand with blood coating the skin, crimson liquid flowing into the creases of his palm. He tore his gaze away to look at you and it was the first time you saw terror in his eyes.

Looking back on it now, you’re not sure if taking him to be examined by doctors, picked at by nurses was the most thoughtful choice. You think that while a death at home within his own bed would have been more painful, perhaps slower, a death in the blindingly white hospital—connected to ticking, beeping machines by myriads of tubes and wires, far away from the forests he grew up in—was worse, even if the anesthetic kept it innocuous on his body. It was difficult to see him cascaded in nothing but blanched fabrics, the stark lack of color only serving to make his face look thinner than it did back at home, and even with his dark complexion he managed to look frighteningly pallid.

It hurt.

You want to punch yourself for thinking about how painful it was for you when you know what he was suffering through, but it hurt. You hate that beneath the mask he wore, he was in so much more pain than let himself show, likely to hide the intensity of his aches so as to not worry you. Initially, at least; the next day in the small room, once the nursing staff had left the two of you alone, he carefully grasped your hand and with his voice uncharacteristically weak told you that he did not foresee himself getting better.

He didn’t say it explicitly, not then, but you knew what he meant with just that.

The next couple days passed with no more dialogue on the matter, and instead the two of you tried to enjoy the time together that you had left. Sometimes you would read a favorite novel of his—a digital copy pulled down onto your Coil—out loud, lying next to him on the hard, adjustable bed in the small space he didn’t occupy.

Other times you would listen to him recount old tales from his childhood, and even though his speech was fragile in a way you weren’t used to, he told them with such reverence on his features that you couldn’t help staying in denial that soon you won’t be able to experience this with him ever again. Without his knowing, you recorded each and every single one his stories, so that even when he was gone you could hear him talk every day after.

You wouldn’t be able to forgive yourself if you forgot the sound of his voice.

Often, though, you would simply hold him as you lay curled up against him, neither of you trading words as you sat in the desolate atmosphere of the room, beeping of the heart monitor echoing off of the powder blue walls, hiss of the ventilator pumping air into his lungs during the bad hours, footsteps resounding from the other side of the door as people passed and left. He rested his cheek on the top of your head, and you tried your hardest to memorize the feeling of his fingers toying with your hair, with the ornamented braid hanging from your temple.

You don’t want to forget the warmth of his skin.

The day before he passed, he contacted an acquaintance from one of the nearby towns; the woman was not a member of his tribe—certainly not—but a fellow native belonging to a neighboring family. You had never met her prior to this, but she apparently worked with Mink at the shop for a few years, and she was one of the four committed to the burial.

The words made your stomach sink, your breath trapping itself in your throat while you watched him hand an enclosed envelope to her, contents entailing what you assumed to be the specifications needed for the process, for the ceremony. It was impossible for you to ask for details—couldn’t will yourself to speak—yet before she bid her farewells he told you that you were to aid her, that he entrusted you to do so. You nodded, swallowing hard, knowing you couldn’t deny him that.

Your mouth was dry for the rest of the day, but you pushed the sickly knot growing in your throat away to at least pretend that everything would be okay. Together you spent the day gazing out the window, watching the gentle fall of thick snow pass the bare tree branches, the hovering fog masking the distant mountains in an massive expanse of ivory.

Before night began to shift the skies from stark white into a blanket of dull pinks and muted thistles, you reluctantly asked him if he would take a photo with you. Honestly, you didn’t want to remember Mink as he was then, ventilator tubes tucked over his ears, face pallor and sunken. When you think of the man who saved you, who accepted you despite your flaws, you want to remember him as he appeared in the outskirts of the forest during a warm spring afternoon: hair pulled gingerly from his face by the breeze, golden pools of his eyes glimmering in the sunlight, standing tall with squared shoulders as he viewed his homeland with pride and admiration.

But you asked him anyways, and while you thought he would be against the idea, he hummed with approval, corners of his mouth tugging into a small smile. Getting up from your chair to crawl into bed with him, you grasped the small cube resting on the sidetable. You pressed down onto the rabbit-faced side of the block with your thumb, and the Allmate sprung to life with a shrill, tinny voice.

With your short command, the cube floated in the air a bit unsteadily before it balanced itself out into position, and as it began a countdown, Mink slid his hand into yours—fingertips grazing the scar on your palm—and you intertwined your fingers with his. You huddled closer to him, leaning your head onto his shoulder before the bot reached zero, shutter going off with a tiny cheer.

You can’t forget his face.

With the photo taken, Mink turned to face you with a remark about how someone like you had such an obnoxious Allmate—his grin just slightly wider than earlier—and when you looked back at him with slight annoyance and a quick denial, for the first time in nearly a month everything felt normal, like the person before you wasn’t going to vanish completely in just a brief matter of time.

In the middle of your indignation, you heard the shutter sound for a second time.

Comparing the two pictures, you couldn’t decide which one was your favorite, but you thought it didn’t matter when he was smiling in both of them.

You had been sleeping on the padded bench inside the room for the several days Mink was hospitalized—over a week’s worth of clothing packed in a duffel bag tucked underneath the sink—and for the entire time he was there you never left the building, spending as much time as he did in that small room. It was inevitable, then, that you heard everything between him and the doctors, between him and the nurses, without any kind of filter or censorship.

After waking that final morning, he called in his primary doctor and without any reluctance asked for himself to be removed from the ventilator, from the IV, from the heart monitor. You knew what it meant, and as much as you tried to prepare yourself, you couldn’t stop the chill running down your spine and the shakiness spreading over your limbs.

The next few hours elapsed slowly, a fact that you were thankful for no matter how strenuous it felt. The incessant beeping, hissing, hushing of the machines expelled from the room was strangely comforting despite its looming meaning, the only sounds reverberating being mingling sighs and shuffling of fabric as the two of you lay face-to-face in a tangle of limbs.

Running your hands up his torso, you hated the starched texture of the thin robe, and you wondered how he could tolerate such rough cloth. He cradled your face in his hands, placing kisses over your eyelids, your cheekbones, your nose, your jaw, before stopping at your mouth, brushing his tongue between the part of your lips. You opened up easily, pushing back almost tenderly while tracing your hand over the exposed skin above the neckline of his robe, snaking your fingers under the cloth.

The embrace had not lasted long before Mink had to pull away, coughing erupting from his chest suddenly. His shoulders shook violently as he shushed the hacking with a hand over his mouth, eyes squeezed shut, brows knitted tight beneath his forehead. You rose the arm you weren’t lying on to stroke along his back, removing your other hand from his chest and readjusting the article of clothing.

Once the fit of his lungs ceased, you told him that you both should stop, and as much as it seemed he wanted to continue, he agreed with you with a short nod of his head. He drew crooked circles on the edge of your cheekbone as the two of you lay together in silence, and you searched his face carefully while tracing the pads of your fingers between his shoulder blades. You knew he was choosing his words, and you held in a breath when he opened his mouth.

“Don’t cry, Noiz. You can’t.”

He ended the sentence with a concluding swipe under your eye before sliding his hand back to press his fingers onto the nape of your neck, his thumb hovering over the tragus piercing on your ear. Your hand at his back halted in its movement, but you didn’t know what to say in response, the lump under the hollow of your neck ensnaring your voice. His eyes bore into your own; he didn’t appear stern so much as he appeared upset.

You know what death meant to him, how it was equal to the lives he led both without you and with you, and it was something he had discussed with you long before this illness had abruptly deteriorated his body, before he had taken you to visit the graves of his family years ago on an early autumn morning. You know that he wasn’t distraught with his imminent passing but rather distraught with your subsequent mourning, with your coping of his leaving where he would be unable to ease you through it.

Clenching your jaw you told him that you wouldn’t. Saying nothing in response, he leaned forward to press his lips onto your forehead, the kiss achingly soft on your skin. You breathed unevenly, the air coming out in a shudder while he pulled back. With a final upward glance at his golden irises, you gripped onto his robe as he lowly said he loved you, words the two of you rarely traded outside of goodbyes.

With the knot still in your throat, you repeated the phrase for what you knew was the last time he would hear them. He wrapped his other arm around your shoulder, and as he nodded off to sleep you watched the subtle pulsation in his neck—a modest sign of life, one you know well—before the afternoon drowsiness took you over as well.

When you awoke a few hours later, the wavering in his neck had stopped and he was gone.

You wanted nothing more than to stay there, to hold onto him, to feel the remnants of his warmth before it vanished entirely, before his resting form would begin to resemble that of a corpse rather than that of a man during tranquil sleep. You wanted to stay there and never leave, to bury yourself into the hard hospital bed beside him and allow time to stop.

You couldn’t stay—not with your promise—but you would not be able to bear it if you didn’t take the only remaining chance you had to hold him one final time. You sat up quietly, grabbing the arm around your shoulder and pulling it away as you did so, then settling it to rest over his unmoving stomach. With your fingers weak and unsteady you cupped his jaw with your palms, brushing your thumbs over the cold flesh at the hollows of his cheeks before dropping your head. Pressing your foreheads together, you were still for a few solemn moments until you kissed the corner of his mouth in the same way you had done casually for years.

You didn’t cry. You told him you wouldn’t.

The woman arrived at the hospital within the next hour, stepping inside the room with a tweed bag slung over her shoulder. She greeted you with a light squeeze on your upper arm, an expression of sorrow casting over her features only briefly before she let go. Sliding the bag off of her form, she opened the drawstring sack and pulled out a round, wooden container barely larger than her fist. She handed it to you as she told you that you didn’t have to strip as tradition says, but that you must coat your skin with the contents of the box before the two of you could begin the burial process.

You took it from her and willed your hands to stop wavering as you worked, spreading the dark grey powder onto the exposed skin of your neck, your wrists, your ankles, letting it dust over your sweater and your moccasins. With a thorough wash of your hands in the sink, you stood beside her at the foot of the bed for your next instructions.

She was a considerably small woman—the top of her head only reaching your shoulders—with her lean limbs hidden by thick wool sleeves until she rolled them up to reveal surprisingly taut forearms. You yourself have been nearing your thirties, and from the wrinkles lining her face she must have been older than Mink by a decade or more. She kept her hair long, tied in a braided tail that ended at the small of her back, and her eyes were such a deep brown that—if it weren’t for the snow-covered landscape beaming bright through the window—they looked like solid onyx stones.

The process was lengthy, extending into several hours of work as the two of you washed his body and redressed him in clothes that were entirely unfamiliar to you. The fabrics were extravagant—to put it simply—and composed with the similar hues and tones he weaved into textiles, warm and neutral colors adorning his thinned frame. It made him look alive, in a way—more than the pristine medical whites did.

Much of the customs were foreign to you, yet as she worked beside you she explained the meaning and purpose behind each procedure, speaking kindly and managing to keep you grounded through the aching you felt underneath your ribs.

She left you to brush his hair with a thick-toothed, wooden comb as she stepped aside to make a call—the two others preparing the burial site, you could overhear—and to give you a moment of privacy. She didn’t express it aloud, but you understood that she meant it as your last opportunity to be with him alone, until his body is buried beneath six feet of soil.

You stopped yourself from touching his face as you ran the comb through the gradient-toned hair, starting from the root and gingerly pulling down to the reddened tips, holding the underside of the locks in your palm as you brushed. You’ve always loved how soft the tresses of his head were, loved how it shimmered in the sun with the same golden tone of his eyes, loved how it swayed in the wind with the fluidity of water, loved how it eventually began to turn grey a few strands at a time as the years passed.

You won’t let yourself forget the feeling of his hair.

Taking a lock of it in your hand, you weaved the untangled hair into a fresh braid and clasped a pure white feather to the tip of it. Throughout the tresses you looped glass beads of an array of colors—pinks and pearls and teals—in extravagant, scattered patterns that you only saw him wear very few times, a style he reserved for anniversaries and holidays.

As you finished, the woman told you that there was nothing else to prepare for, and before standing back up to begin moving his body, you tucked a lock behind his ear and thought about how beautiful he is.

* * *

 

A few hours after you and the woman transported the body back to the forests, to the burial site of his family—the graves he dug and filled himself—you finally began the ceremony. The pair who unearthed the ground—closer to your own age, one masculine and one androgynous—assisted you and the woman in carrying the body with a stretcher to set it on a large cloth next to the grave, and during so a twisted piece in your mind found it fascinating that Mink was still such a huge man even without all the weight his ailment had stolen from him.

The thought left a bitter taste in your mouth.

One by one, the four of you placed various pieces of his belongings over his resting form: flat on his back, legs straight and unbent, hands folded over his stomach, a pose that you have seen in films many times in the past. The woman set in several articles of jewelry—each piece containing some kind of turquoise stone—and though left unexplained you assumed they were ones Mink kept at his desk at the shop. The man and the androgyne gave his crafting tools and an old textile from the cabin, as well as a multitude of small art pieces and trinkets from the home’s prayer altar.

In a bag at your feet you pulled out a stack of his favorite books—hardcovers and paperbacks alike—and tucked them under his palms. After, you removed his black-rimmed reading glasses from the side pocket, the thin metal frame light in your hand as you placed it beside his head. You had gathered a small handful of rosemary from the back garden of the cabin and placed them inside a drawstring pouch. Taking the sprigs from it’s container, you settled them to test just below his collarbones.

The last thing in the bag, however, was his Allmate.

Within the letter he gave to the woman, which she had directly quoted when you inquired about the bird, Mink wrote that Rurakhan was not to be buried with him “as he is not a belonging but a friend.” You brought the feathered bot to the ceremony because he is family, not only to his owner, but to you as well. He may have no longer been functional—not as he was in the past—but the purpose of his frame being present for such an event is enough.

As a form of farewell, a thick quilt was to be laid over the body before the piling of the soil. The individuals with you told you that Mink wanted you to do it, and you felt yourself already beginning to crumble, beginning to lose your composure as you stepped forward to take the blanket into your arms. Unfolding the material, you let it unravel completely before you carefully began to lay the quilt over the stretcher, starting at his feet and concluding at his head. In the light of the setting sun, the ornaments of his hair glimmered before they became enshrouded by the handcrafted veil.

You couldn’t bring yourself to lower his body into the ground afterward. Taking a few steps back, you could only watch the burial with the woman as the other two performed the cyclical shoveling of earth into the grave, menial lanterns hanging off the nearby trees as the sun set and the moon rose.

You wanted to be the one to properly rest him, yet the cry begging to erupt from your throat was warning enough that you simply couldn’t. You were ashamed that you could not hold your emotions at bay—no matter how raw they may be—to fulfill the final act of his funeral rites, and it was so paralyzing then, the sickness spreading along your chest and stomach, your fingernails digging so sharply into your palm that the skin breaks in shallow, crescent-shaped lacerations.

You couldn’t feel the pain.

And now you’re in the cabin for the first time in nearly a week, standing in front of his favorite dining chair as you drown in the numbness flooding your veins. You're exhausted. Eyes pleading to close, arms limp at your sides, legs too heavy to lift forward, all you desire at this point is sleep. With effort, you carry yourself to the sofa—toeing off your moccasins to trail after your path—and sit upon the aged cushions, neglecting to put on a fire in favor of rest.

After a silent moment you slowly lie down onto your side, bringing up your knees to meet with your chest, and as your eyes fall shut you dimly hope that the cold takes you tonight.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I try and I try to remember  
> The number of ways you made me feel loved  
> But its been cold this past December  
> Now I feel that my love lies dead in the ground
> 
> [ _Breathe._ ](http://splitbricks.tumblr.com/post/100313374747/)

You begin to lose your sense of time within the matter of a single day. When you awoke the next morning, you couldn’t tell what time it could possibly be, and peering past the curtain you were simply met with a blinding light, the risen sun brightening the blanket of snow to a painful degree for your sleep-laden eyes.

Day and night passes by in a never-ending blur, and your only sign to fall asleep anymore is either when your Allmate tells you that you should or when your body is utterly unable to stay awake any longer. You stop eating regularly—also something you must be reminded to do—as your appetite has vanished entirely, and when you do get around to feeding yourself, it’s something menial and of the least amount of effort to prepare. The cabin begins gathering a dense layer of dust that you cannot be willed to clean. You take a bath only when you need to.

Despite the mustiness of the rooms, you rarely leave the cabin; you have no reason to. The winters in December are harsh, but snow doesn’t begin to truly roll in and pile up until the early months of the year, a lesson you learned after your first full season in this mountainous region from what seems like eons ago. Since the two of you keep the pantry stocked with non-perishable food during such cold moons, you aren’t concerned with possibly starving to death; however, even without the supply you don’t think you would be worried much either.

The only time you step out the front door is when you need to gather more firewood so as to not freeze inside the cabin.

If the exertion of casting the ax down is making your arms, your shoulders, your back sore, you aren’t able to tell, the single-digit temperatures paired with your grief being enough to numb it all entirely as you work. Chopping firewood serves as your catharsis for the day—whichever one it is; you don’t keep track—and it is only when you’re splitting oak trees apart do you allow yourself to break your promise, to openly mourn, even it is only of concentrated anger. You can feel the blood running through your veins like firewater, scorching and molten underneath your skin.

But even after you return into the warm enclosure of home, abundant timber stacked in your arms, you become sluggish once more—languid and distant, as if you had never gained the gift of sensation from a man who hadn’t intended to mend your mind in such an inconceivable way. You are a silhouette of the person you once were, an illustration solely composed of fading lines, unfilled by the colors of life that you were once painted with. You walk each day as if you're automated, programmed only to ensure your survival and little else.

You don’t sleep in the bed anymore. You couldn’t bear having to roll over and cast your palm over the other side of the mattress only to discover how cold it is.

As much as seeing Rurakhan every time you look at the dining table stabs at your chest, you can't bring yourself to move him, to give him a proper resting place—not unlike what you failed to do with his owner's remains. He may not be functional, yet even without that dandy voice speaking up or the muted sound of his feathers being preened by his mechanical beak, the bird is a constant presence you cannot escape from.

Mink told you not to cry, and you don't.

Lying on the sofa has become your most engrossing past time, where you become stuck in a limbo of hazy awareness and unconsciousness as you fall into an unfocused stare at the backrest, dark browns knitted with burgundy blurring into a singular, indistinguishable mass of burnt umber fabric. Little sound aside from the whistle of the wind hissing past the cracks of the windows; the creaking of the cabin as the structure settles into the ground; the crackling of the still slightly damp firewood accompanies the sighs of your own breathing throughout the living room. The world is merely you and the elements slowly eroding at the walls of what you call home.

There are occasions where your Allmates—a small group of rabbit-faced blocks that could be likened to a herd—will attempt to break you out of your bereavement, and other than their nudging for you to feed yourself, their efforts are proven time and time again to be fruitless. You know that they’re only trying to help. You don’t intend to be uncooperative, as if you are purposely ignoring them and their shrill-voiced advice, but the only drive you have anymore is to follow the most basic needs of what your body requires to stay alive.

You’d honestly rather be dead now that he is gone.

Yet in spite of their failed attempts, the cubes will always huddle around your body as you lie curled upon the sofa, and they will always linger atop the backrest, the armrest, on the cushion beside your feet, in the narrow enclosure between you and the back of the sofa. Perhaps it is out of courtesy that they lower the volume of their mechanized voices, speaking to you in a quiet whisper—“We are not soft, not soft, but we are here.”—as they carefully press against your form.

You appreciate it, even if it seldom does help to lessen the anguish pooling under your ribs.

Near the end of the third week—on a Thursday or a Friday, you aren’t sure—you receive a message from your brother during the early afternoon hours. He opens with an apology—behavior so very consistent with his character—about the lack of communication between you two before he elaborates that he had meant to catch up with you sooner, that work has kept him so busy that he lost track of the past few weeks.

Speaking to Theo for the first time since you were still a young child was something that pulled at you not long after you had moved to the other side of the ocean with Mink, a spur of the moment desire to possibly reconnect to the one other person in your life that didn’t cast you aside and paint you as a monster. You were more than surprised when he responded almost immediately with a gleeful intonation somehow seeping through his text-only message, so excited to hear from his older brother. You are almost certain that he thought you were long dead before you reached out for the first time.

The two of you rarely called one another through video due to the large time difference, your schedules being difficult to align where you can sit down to have a full-fledged conversation, so you both resigned to trading messages that resembled letters than instant modes of communication. You did not even notice that he hadn’t sent anything your way for so long. You don’t think he would hold you against it.

At the end of his message, he asks how you and Mink are doing, and reading it shoots a dull pain into your sternum. You don’t blame him for his ignorance—there’s no possible way he would have known—but it doesn’t stop the question from digging into your chest with unintended, relentless malice. What you say to that exact question you don’t know, so you only respond with “He’s gone.”

It takes him a while to reply to that, but within the preceding twenty minutes he simply tells you that he should be there before midnight.

If Theo could get here any faster, you know he would. You know he would be here so much sooner than midnight if it was possible, but a plane ride is his most immediate method of reaching you. You think that you should probably draw a bath and tidy the cabin if only out of being polite, out of being a good host to pass the time, and with rigorous effort you stand up off of the sofa for only the second time today.

* * *

 

When Theo emerges from the plethora of trees surrounding the cabin—flashlight in hand, backpack clinging to his shoulders—you step outside to wait for him on the porch, arms wrapped around your torso out of defense from the snow-marred air, illuminated by the lit fireplace peering through the windows.

Your brother has been to visit you numerous times before—you’ve lost count—and the first few times he flew in you would meet him at the closest airport, standing not too far from the gate as you await him to walk out from the large doors, still clad in a suit as if he had just come home from work. By now, he has learned to traverse the forest on his own—an easy, well-traveled path Mink had shared with him in the past—where he would drive until he met the outskirts of the woodland and then follow the trail you and Mink took to and from everyday.

Theo enjoyed visiting more than you would have expected, and he would fly in as often as he was able, provided he wasn’t hindered by obligations to the business or engaged to family outings with the spouse and kids. He’s always been enthusiastic to see you, to see Mink, to see the forestry and the cabin that is so different from what the two of you had grown up with on the other side of the ocean.

He was intimidated by Mink initially—enormously so, though you’ve never criticized him for it—but by the end of his first stay, you could hear the admiration in his voice when bidding the two of you farewell, shaking Mink’s hand and pulling you into an restrained yet kind hug.

Now, the moment he steps onto the porch he wraps his arms around you without hesitation, enclosing you in a sorrowful, loving yet overwhelmingly tight embrace, squeezing you in a way that you could best describe as desperate. You try to return it, but it’s almost as if your arms are weighed down by invisible weights, shackled to the floor by anchored, unyielding chains. His token of comfort is poorly reciprocated on your part, but you know that your brother won’t take it personally. He’s too selfless to think otherwise.

After he pulls away and the two of you step inside to meet the welcoming warmth of the cabin, Theo sets his backpack and flashlight aside, peeling off his thick winter jacket and hanging it onto the coat rack. He does it so casually, and if your mind wasn’t clouded by the debilitating circumstances you are in now, you would smile at the familiarity in his movements, as if he has always lived here in this homely structure.

He turns around to look at you, and in his face—chartreuse eyes that mirror your own, dirty blond brows that contrast your strawberry-toned tresses, lightly-freckled cheekbones so unlike your clear skin—all you see is a sinking, forlorn twinge within his expression.

Your brother was always horribly empathetic—in stark comparison to your parents, at least—and you were never quite sure how to handle his strong emotions. It’s no wonder he was more liked by the family, by not just the immediate family but also by the extended relatives. Dearest Theo, always so kind and compassionate, tall and soft-spoken, gentle-faced and friendly. You, unfeeling and unsympathetic, compulsive and violent, alienated by your peers and your superiors.

He asks if you are tired, if you wanted to wait until morning, but all you reply with is a shrug as you break eye contact, a passive and lifeless gesture that you don’t intend to be insensitive to his concern for your well-being. You’ve been nothing but tired for each day since you woke up in the hospital without that heart beating beside you.

Perhaps the movement made him feel awkward as you see him move reluctantly in the edges of your vision, but he decides to interpret that response with you not needing to go back to sleep any time soon, inquiring if you would like to sit with him on the couch. When you nod, he takes a step with less doubt than earlier, pressing a hand gently on your upper back to have you follow.

The two of you sit onto the cushions side by side and for an elongated moment no words pass among you both, the crackling of the fireplace being the only sound to meet your ears. He fiddles with his hands in his lap, picking at a cuticle with a fingernail as you sit upon the sofa with your back pushed against the backrest, body still and slackened. You stare at the wooden floor, your vision unfocused as you contemplate the frequency of your breathing

He’s the first to break the silence, sitting up straight as he tells you that he wishes to ask, his sentence trailing away when he starts with an exception to his statement, possibly afraid of how you might react if he made his inquiry explicit.

Mink told you not to cry.

You barely make it past the words “He got sick” before it all hits you like a tidal wave, rushing over you unrepentant as the knot builds in your throat, mouth suddenly and unexpectedly dry. The weight behind your sternum grows heavy, and you let your shoulders slump forward as the sorrow drowns your lungs. You’re unfamiliar with the burning sensation that crying brings to your eyes, but you finally shed tears, the liquid searing against your skin as they seep from between your eyelids and descend over the slopes of your cheekbones.

The gasp of air you take in is shaky, a staggered shudder into your lungs, and your hand clasps over your mouth in anguished, hurried motions as a sob threatens to break out past the heart of your throat. Your shoulders tremble uncontrollably while you duck your head towards your knees, feeling yourself crumble apart and tear at the seams at long last, the culmination of a month’s worth of grieving finally being liberated from the emotional confinements you restrained them with.

You know better than to try and halt the pain overflowing from your insides. You let yourself be whisked away by the memories that flow underneath you, the vibrancy of it all—each rattling cough, each palm covered in ruby liquid, each hiss of the ventilator, each steady beep of the heart monitor, each wavering pulse in his neck, each touch of pallor flesh—overwhelming, merciless in its torment to your core.

You do nothing to stop it. There’s no way you could, not like this. You’re a child again, crying out for help, for comfort, for someone to hold you and guide you through your abandonment.

The sight of the dancing shadows from the fire becomes nothing more than blurs of taupe and pale vermillion, tears distorting your vision to almost blindness. You squeeze your eyes closed, the knot of your brows forming deep into your skin as you suck in a hopeless breath. After the first wail breaks past your lips, past the guard of your palm, you feel a shift in the cushion beside you, hands gliding over your back in a gesture of comfort.

Your brother wraps an arm around your shoulder and pulls you in close, tucking your head against his chest as he rests his cheek on the top of your head. It is an unfamiliar embrace—one you’ve never experienced—yet you understand that it’s reminiscent of the way a parent would hold their child, one of many things Theo got to have that you didn’t.

He says nothing, just letting you rest against him as your soul dismantles entirely in front of him.

With his hand stroking along your upper arm, you allow yourself to be held, hushing the sobs erupting from your mouth with your scarred palm, and with bitter sickness filling your veins, you silently beg for Mink’s forgiveness for betraying your promise.

* * *

 

Speaking in German again—or rather understanding it being spoken—after neglecting to do so for so long serves as some difficulty, but you thankfully don’t say much while Theo is still there. He stays with you to tend to the cabin—primarily dusting, scrubbing the kitchen counters and appliances, emptying the fireplace—as you failed to do through weeks of grieving, as well as ensuring that you eat and that you eat well, cooking at least twice a day for the both of you. He sleeps in the guest room while you sleep on the sofa.

The second day after his arrival, while he was busy replenishing the fireplace, you ask him about his obligations to the business—one of the few times you spoke without being spoken to first—and he responds that he left his position to his wife so he could be here with his brother. His voice sounds nonchalant, unbothered by his being away from work, and in his face you see a complacency line his features as he looks at you with a soft smile.

You are unsure whether to feel grateful or to feel guilty.

Much of your time spent together is Theo telling you of any and all things he can think of about home, telling you about the youngest child losing his first baby tooth, telling you about the eldest joining her first school club and how excited she was to make new friends; telling you about the family dog that turned five years old just the other month.

He tells you about the large pine tree they somehow managed to squeeze through the front door; about all the gold and silver ornaments, tinsel, lights they hung upon it; about all the multicolored, paper-wrapped boxes beneath it; about the gleeful, joyous expressions on the children’s faces when they tore open the gifts to discover what was underneath it, and you dimly realize that you passed Christmas by without a single, welcoming glance.

It’s nice. It’s nice to hear something lighthearted, to hear something joyous, to hear something that isn’t like the misery you have been enduring for what feels like an endless stretch of time.

Despite how you feel like you shouldn’t dwell upon days past, his genuine happiness of retelling such mundane and domestic happenings reminds you of all the times your brother flew over to visit, reminding you of how comfortable he became after the initial, inevitable awkwardness of meeting in person again for the first time in years.

Mink had always been an imposing individual, and your memory of your brother’s personality had not failed you when you thought how intimidated he would be when meeting your partner for the first time. They had traded a handshake—firm and perhaps a bit stiff—and you were highly bemused by the pursing of Theo’s lips as his hand appeared to be almost engulfed by Mink’s much larger grip.

It hadn't seemed obvious to your brother, initially, what your relationship with Mink was like; what the two of you were to one another; what each of you had done to change the meaning of your respective existences. Aside from living together —sharing the same secluded space, breathing the same air—you wouldn't doubt your brother's uncertainty as Mink and yourself hardly expressed any physical forms of affection in front of others.

As the sun began its descent past the mountains later that same day, you had sat Theo down in the living room and bluntly told him that you and Mink were intimate—although your phrasing was much more vulgar—and the flush that cascaded over his freckled cheekbones was almost comically scarlet as he fell into a complete fluster. Sputtering, he argued that it must have been more than that—pointing out the ornaments in your hair and clothing resting on your frame, among other details—and further expressing that he had already assumed the two of you were likely more than mere housemates.

Beside you on the sofa, Mink sat largely unaware of what had transpired in your conversation with your easily-embarrassed brother—his German still rudimentary at the time—but from the grin pulling quietly at his lips, he must have had an idea of what was being said before he slipped his hand to press on the small of your back. You aren't sure if Theo saw the gesture, but the two of you continued conversation as Mink slowly dragged his thumb across the dimples of your back, you translating for both of them when the language barrier presented a problem.

By the conclusion of that weekend, however, your brother went from being terrified down to his marrow to being completely absorbed with friendly warmth, grasping Mink's hand in farewell while trying to stop the smile attempting to split his face.

The recollection sends a sickness to your gut—twisting and bleeding and smoldering—and the feeling of his fingers settled over your hip as you watch your guest depart is more than just skin-deep.

* * *

 

On the third day of his current stay, you sit staring at the curls and tendrils of the crackling flames, the thinning tips reaching for the ceiling of the fireplace in an almost anguished melancholy, when you hear your brother sneeze loudly from the kitchen. At first you brush it off, but when it reoccurs for the fourth time you stand up to see what the problem is.

You head your way over to the row of counters that act as a wall between the kitchen and the dining area and rest your palm onto the beige countertop stone. Your brother pulls his hand away from his mouth—tissue bundled underneath his fingers—and with his eyes glistening, squinted, and slightly irritated, he turns to look at you. When you ask what's wrong, his gaze shifts away just slightly—focused on a distant object over your shoulder—before he quietly says that there must be some cinnamon still lingering in the air.

The three of you discovered Theo had a cinnamon allergy the first time he came to visit. At the dining table, after the three of you had finished supper, Mink had gingerly placed mismatching mugs onto the polished wood, steam faintly ascending above the hot, russet beverage. When your brother took his first sip of the drink, however, he soon found himself with an irritated mouth and inflamed lips, eyes reddened and watered as he began enduring a sneezing fit.

He hadn't vocalized it, but you could tell Mink held some sense of responsibility for such an unexpected reaction by his immediate response with old family remedies for easing the irritation. You could tell from his routine examination of Theo's well-being, constantly asking how he was feeling, the impassiveness of his face and the usual tone of his voice easily belied by his behavior. You could tell from his attentiveness the next morning to prepare a separate batch of coffee solely for your younger sibling, ensuring the avoidance of a similar reaction.

It isn't the recollection of the memory itself that is painful, but it is rather the remembered smell of the familiar spice that makes your hand involuntarily curl into a fist on the countertop, makes your mouth grow gradually drier with each passing second.

Mink was never one to be openly affectionate to anyone who wasn’t you; anyone who wasn’t the person he saved from falling apart entirely; anyone who wasn’t the person who saved him from meeting his own self-inflicted demise. It’s a sense of wording you still hold an abhorrence for—years from the day you decided to finally bring him into the bedroom with you—as you feel that you were the one to be swept away and he was merely the one to carry you with him. He was never one to open himself up, and it took what felt like eons to shatter the barrier he kept between himself and others, to get him to no longer shake the hand of your brother but rather pull him in a farewell hug.

Unclenching your fist, you pull your hand away and swallow down the lump formed in the back of your throat. With your voice thick, you reply that you don't think the scent will ever leave this place.

You don't expect Theo to answer back and he doesn't.

* * *

 

On the sixth day of your brother’s stay, you are both washing the dishes from your early dinner when he reluctantly asks what happened. You unintentionally pause in your scrubbing—the circular motions no longer pulling you into an absentminded haze—and at first wonder how you should respond. For such a simple question, you have a difficult time assembling the sequence of events in your mind, ordering them properly, remembering them in the correct string of occurrence, and now it all merges together in a singular mass of heartache.

You settle the ceramic plate onto the rim of the sink—fingers still gently gripping the rounded dish—and scan the reflections in the metal basin as if the images could somehow help you organize your thoughts. After a stretched moment of silence, your brother quickly takes back his inquiry, expressing that you don’t have to tell him if you don’t want to.

With your brows knitting together you blurt out that Mink got sick. It’s merely a repeat of what you initially said before, but this time you are able to get past the words without tears biting at your eyes. Stopping at your side, Theo waits for you to continue, lips pursed as he meekly peers at you with his head just barely turned to you, hands halted in their work on the plain piece of dishware.

You tell him that the two of you thought nothing of it at first, that it merely seemed like a typical cold, that the remedies Mink had locked up in his mind for safekeeping would have been enough to breeze him through it like the few times before. You tell him that you knew something was wrong when he would wake with a fever every morning without fail, that something was wrong when he would fall into a trance of vertigo when he got up too hastily. You tell him that finding blood seeping into the creases of his palm was too much for you to continue pretending that the sickness was something menial.

There's an uncontrollable shakiness in your voice as you speak further, your throat betraying your equanimity while telling your brother of the hospital, of how you never left, of how you refused to be sent away when there were no legal barriers keeping you from staying right at Mink's side. You tell him when the two of you got the test results back, when the doctor described the ailment in simple terms, when you realized the ultimate meaning behind it being difficult to treat and you suddenly couldn't tell if your body was real or not.

You recall the name of the disease in perfect clarity, and the syllables flow off of your tongue as if saying them was as natural to you as breathing, but you're sure that its title is of little use to your brother—his face unchanging in its quietly painful grimace—while he simply listens to your unsteady voice as you continue. Gripping onto the plate enough for your knuckles to grow pale, you elaborate that the infection wasn't contagious, the test put unto you to only come back negative being proof of that.

The last things you're able to remember aloud are the final long moments in the hospital—taking photos together, watching the snowfall from the other side of the glass, facing one another on the narrow sickbed in quaint silence—before your lips begin to quiver against your will. He settles the dish in the sink while you reach the end, the words getting caught in your throat entirely when you attempt to tell him of the last time you could see Mink's pulse gently wavering underneath the thin skin of his neck.

Taking in a breath—the motion stunted and faltered—you try to steady yourself against the counters, and as you lean against the stone edge you feel your brother's arm wrap around your shoulders, gently taking the plate from you with his other hand in the same moment.

The burning sensation of tears threatens your sinuses and it stings at the back of your eyes, yet with the warm embrace draped over your shoulder blades you hardly weep at all.

* * *

 

Theo leaves on the eighth day. The sun rests near the center of the sky, hidden behind a thick cascade of white, winter cloudscape, and the air is still around the cabin as the snow settles heavily over the frail branches of the cottonwood and evergreen trees. This afternoon has been the warmest out of the past few weeks, temperatures just above the levels necessary for you to see your own breath evaporate into the open air.

Before stepping out onto the front patio, your brother and yourself sat together at the dinner table, drinking freshly brewed coffee in reserved quietness. Beside you rested Rurakhan, curled up on the wooden seat in such a way that is so unnatural for sleeping birds—even of the robotic variety—to do, and the image simply served to remind you of his unmoving parts.

On your other side sat Theo, showered and dressed in a sweater that you could not mistake for any other—handmade, crocheted, created by hands that once held your own—in its intricate patterns of carmine and maroon. You forget after what visit compelled Mink to begin work on a tailored pullover, but you clearly remember the growing rise of tears in your brother’s eyes the next time he stayed with you at the cabin, clutching the weaved article of clothing in his hands before practically throwing himself onto Mink in a grateful embrace.

You feel a twinge in your chest from the memory—nothing if not bittersweet—and remembering the brief confusion blooming onto Mink’s features before it melted away, replaced with a tone of subtle affection as he reciprocated the hug gently.

It didn’t take long for Theo to replace his own light blue sweater with the gift from your partner that evening, the deep shades of red accenting the cream-colored button-up underneath quite well. With every visit after that, your brother would wear the sweater at least once, and you were only left to guess how often he wore it back home, possibly to show it off to the family and to the company for being the only one to keep in contact with you.

You said nothing when he saw him emerge from the bathroom, said nothing when you recognized the well-cared-for piece of clothing, said nothing when he met your gaze and gave you a small but perhaps saddened smile. You aren’t angry at him for wearing it—how could you, really—but it doesn’t stop the knife from digging just a bit deeper into your gut.

There is little within this homely cabin that has been left untouched by Mink’s existence—the walls constructed with his own hands, textiles and crafts lining the corners of each room, shelves lined with worn-out hardcover and paperback books, scent of cinnamon lingering in the still air—and even yourself stands testament to this same fact—your ears adorned with turquoise stone, hair ornamented with rose quartz beads, body decorated with custom-made jewelry meant solely for you and no one else.

His impact was not left to simply stay inside the home, to only influence you and the Allmates, but it also carried to your own sibling and draped him in a series of irreplaceable gifts, not limited to just sweaters but included bracelets, necklaces, rings, scarves, and anything else forged by the man over the course of several years.

Mink will never leave you, and you will have to remember in each small way he will stay with you until your journey ends as well.

And now, standing outside in the cold and wearing only what you would don inside the house, you bid your brother goodbye. He stands before you—backpack braced over his shoulders, woolen winter coat cascading over his form from his neck to his shins, earmuffs pulled away from his ears—as he checks his Coil, briskly scanning over the time before shutting it off.

When your gaze meets his own once again, he gives you a sullen look, upturning his brows just slightly as his lips stretch in pursed smile, before he asks if you would like to go with him. He offers you to stay with his family back in Germany, if only for a while, and after a short beat of silence adds that you won’t ever have to speak with your parents while there.

You’re quick to refuse, an almost immediate reaction that reminds you of your hastiness to come here, to come with Mink to his homeland, to accept his silent question of “Will you follow me?” Theo knows better than to take it personally, and after hearing your curt and quick answer he naturally smiles, a genuine yet modest pull of his lips. He nods and says he understands.

Theo tells you that the offer always stands before he steps forward and enfolds you in a embrace. As you wrap your arms around his back, your brother pulls you in closer, his hold around your shoulders so tight that it seemed as if he was afraid of what would happen if he were to let go.

With his voice low he promises that he will come back soon, that he will try to see you as often as his schedule will allow. He gives you a final squeeze until he pulls away, shifting his hands from your back to your upper arms. The two of you trade a kind glance and then Theo drops his palms from your person. Near your feet, an eager cube jitters its way into the air, floating up to your brother head level before pressing its bunny-faced side against his cheek in a mock kiss.

The chuckle you hear from Theo is relieving, and once the block lands back to the ground, your brother gives you a final nod, lifting a hand to wave goodbye as he begins turning around. You replicate the gesture to him until you are bidding his departure to his back. Remaining on the snow-dusted front porch, you watch him delve into the maze of bleak trees across a blanket of white, folding your arms and burying your fingers into the fabric of your turtleneck. You stay until there is no sign of your brother’s marching form among the sea of tree trunks.

When you return inside, you feel no less colder, but there’s a lightness emanating from your bones, as if a weight was just barely lifted from your shoulders. You stand at the doorway for an indistinguishable length of time, absorbing the surroundings of a home you’ve lived in for nearly a decade while your Allmate drifts away into some corner of the cabin.

With your arms still held close to your chest, you begin to wander within the walls, gazing over the remnants of the man you will never be able to touch again, memorizing the geometric patterns of the pottery, tracing your gaze over the designs of the decorative cloths suspended from the wall, pulling your hand away from yourself to graze the binding of a hardcover book with your knuckles, the title eroded and illegible from age. You hover your fingers over the array of feathers lined on the workdesk, pads of your fingers hardly brushing them with the delicacy of a blind man reading braille.

Among the work materials sit sprigs of rosemary, fair violet flowers sprouting off of the stems in modest clusters, the small petals soft on your skin as you brush over them briefly. You left them there, and you think you will always replace each one as they wither and dry out for as long as you live here, if only to remind yourself to never forget.

You turn around and face the meager dining table, the cloth blocking your sight of something that you can no longer pretend isn’t there.

Slowly you step forward, the dragging of your moccasins against the wood flooring reminiscent of the early morning tides of the place where you met the person who once shared this space with you, the place where you found meaning in living that was more than just existing out of spite. You stop in front of Mink’s preferred dining chair, the man’s companion resting as if he was reserving the seat until his owner’s return.

You can’t help the hesitance, but soon you gather Rurakhan in your arms as before, the bird cradled against your chest with his unpatched eyelid closed and unflinching, inner-workings absent of their usual hum from underneath his vibrant feathers. There’s a pang of sadness—heartache, rather—in your core, knowing that you will never hear the dandy voice of the bot that also grew to become a close friend, a family member despite his own inorganic nature.

The distance is short, but making your way into Mink’s bedroom feels simultaneously brief and prolonged, your focus on the synthetic plumage of the bird taking you from the current moment as you look at him—truly look at him—for the first time in nearly month.

You can’t help the sudden suffocation of your lungs when you step inside that bedroom, your senses filled with someone who no longer breathes, someone whose veins no longer pump blood, someone whose body lies under six feet of soil. With a painful swallow, you bring yourself to stand at the side of the bed, one that the two of you hardly shared in favor of your own larger one in the other room.

Gliding your palm over the bedsheets, you flatten any folds in the thick cloth before settling Rurakhan’s frame onto it, bestowing a proper resting place for the life that knew Mink better than yourself.

You close the door behind you after you leave, and the muffled click of the latch gives you a sense of comfort that you don’t quite understand. Your let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding while your fingers linger on the door handle.

When you tear away from the bedroom entrance, you resign to sitting on the sofa once more, a mass of furniture that you have become painfully familiar with during the past several weeks. The cushions are soft as you sink into them, and for a long moment you let yourself bask in the stillness, the faint crackling of the fireplace serving as the only tone around you.

Yet, as you immerse yourself into the quaint, reposed air, there’s an itching feeling at the back of your skull that you can’t seem to push away.

You give in, spawning a luminescent blue hologram from your Coil, the piece chiming with a muted hello as you begin digging through your documents. You search through an insurmountable number of files, nearly fifteen years worth of personal data—text, images, video, audio, logged Rhyme statistics that you haven’t seen since you moved—stored on the miniscule memory card buried inside the hardware. In the subfolder labeled “voice recordings,” you find what you’re looking for.

When you open that folder, however, you find yourself halting at first, your fingers going still as you hover over the first highlighted file, the illuminated words piercing right through your core and locking your joints in place. With nothing but sheer force of will, the pad of your finger taps over the audio file—a string of Latin letters followed by a numerical date and time-and through the tiny speakers you hear his voice.

It’s raspy, the breath passing through his lips rattling like that of an empty spray paint can, and it’s not the tone that you found yourself enamored with as you heard it with each passing day, but it is his. In the background you hear the hiss of the ventilator, the beep of the heart monitor, the shuffling of the starched hospital robe where you absentmindedly rubbed circles against his abdomen.

You soak in the words of the story—the tale of the hare—with the air trapped inside your lungs, an overwhelming rush of emotions flooding into your skull as you force yourself to remain stable. The narrative is one you know well, one you’ve heard a multitude of times in the past, but you can hardly recall this specific telling of it and you don’t know what it will bring you.

You listen as he vividly describes the swift movements of the great forest rabbit, a divine being taking the form of a common prey animal to commit trickery. It’s one of your favorites—for clearly explicable reasons; Mink has always been able to look right through you—and he knew that well, retelling it often when the two of you would lounge in bed on lazy Sunday mornings.

There’s a point in the recording where you make some offhanded remark—to act as if everything was normal, one that you hardly registered hearing in your relistening—and it’s the broken yet pleasant chuckle that comes from Mink that makes you let go, that fills you with a sorrowful but astounding happiness when a shaky laugh on the threshold of a sob escapes your body. Wiping away the tears attempting to fall from your eyes, you rewind the track if only to hear that beautiful sound one more time, and you think you will learn to cope as well as you can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can blame [Ari](http://splitbricks.tumblr.com/) and me (but mostly me) for this after talking about Noiz mourning Mink on twitter a while ago. While I put much of my soul into this, think of this as merely a "bad end" for the _palms_ universe. I'm too much of a hopeful idealist for my two favorites to not grow old together in their little cabin in the middle of the forest.
> 
> Special thanks to Ari for acting as my main beta once again and drawing the cover art for still. Huge thank you to [J](http://criticalattack.tumblr.com/) who did beta reading again as well. I'd also like to thank [Cami](http://si-siw.tumblr.com/) for giving me inspiration with Theo's character based upon Ari's own headcanons. Without you three I don't think I would have been able to make this what it is.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, as always! Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated! If you enjoyed this, please share it on tumblr over [here](http://offdensen.tumblr.com/post/103948626061/still-a-mink-noiz-fanfiction-rating-teen-and-up). ♡


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